THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT YEARS OF ANYONE'S LIFE

I have just completed a university degree course on sociology. Sociology is the science of how people interact with each other. It arose as a field of scientific study during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. It was during the Industrial Revolution when there was much upheaval in the western world as families were uprooted from their farms and villages to relocate into cities to work in factories. Many previously unheard of social problems arose as a result. People, often living in crammed inner-city conditions, became disconnected with their extended families. These cities became huge drawcards not just for people to move from their rural villages and towns, but also for impoverished immigrants to leave behind their poverty in foreign countries and migrate to countries where they could not speak the language let alone understand the local customs, traditions and laws. It was a French academic, Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who noticed that after the French Revolution (which coincided with the Industrial Revolution) that “a new form of society” was forming, and that this could be scientifically studied. Comte coined the term, sociology and set about to write several books explaining how the scientific method could be applied to study of how the members of a society interacted. Those who came after Comte began to study why some people seemed to grow up to become virtuous contributors to society – who always seemed to have ever increasing opportunities for advancement – and others did not. The universal discovery of all sociologists ever since Comte was starting. The secret to the success of these high achievers, seemingly without exception, was determined by the first five years of their life! Sociologists now describe the first five years of anyone’s life as “the most important years of anyone’s life.” This is particularly important for every parent and educator to know. 

French Philosopher, Auguste Comte, who lived a tragic life and died of stomach cancer at the age of 59. He coined the term, “sociology.”

Consider my picture of the two burning candles. The caption asks, Which candle represents the adult and which candle represents the child? Which candle has been burning longest? From this point in time, which candle has the potential to burn longest?

Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

 

WHAT HAPPENS TO A CHILD IN THE FIRST FIVE YEARS OF THEIR LIFE?

“Characteristics of personality that are established in the first five formative years will survive into an individual’s adulthood, directing his or her responses to various life situations.”
(Introduction To Sociology, Koichi Kitano, 2013: 57)

Sociologists have discovered that much a person’s future direction in life is largely determined by the extent to which they were socialised in their first years. Being positively socialised depends on the level of interaction a child has with his or her biological parents, the extent to which their boundaries and consequences are clear, the values enforced, their education (distinct from ‘schooling’) and their comprehension of their place in this world. Sociology Professor, Alex Thio (Society Myths and Realities, 2007:73), cites numerous examples of negative instances where these necessary formative aspects were deprived some children and the result was what he calls feral children.

Professor Thio also cites examples where these formative aspects were intentionally provided to some children with extraordinary results. I think that all Christian parents, educators, and disciplers should be aware of why the first five years of a child’s life are the most important years of their when it comes to shaping a person’s personality and character; and, how can each play a critically important role in positively contributing to each child entrusted into our influence.   

For I, too, was once my father’s son,
tenderly loved as my mother’s only child.
Proverbs 4:3 (NLT)

#1. Children need to learn love.

A newborn and growing child is designed by God to immediately experience love. This often involves being hugged and held by his or mother. As both mother and father then demonstrate and model appropriate touch and affection the child develops the psychological security that he or she is loved. This experience of love is then translated into realising that mother has been serving her son or daughter. The child comes to realise that serving is an intrinsic aspect of loving and being loved. Educators and disciplers (Kids Church/Sunday School teachers) are recognised as reinforcing this vision of love which the child’s parents have also established. In this way the growing child realises that his or her loving community extends beyond their family to their church family. The child can come to see that God is his or her loving heavenly Father, and that we love, because He first loved us (1Jn. 4:19). As the child comes to understanding that love involves sacrificial serving they develop the virtue of helpfulness and see it as an honour to help others.

#2. Children need to learn that boundaries and consequences are necessary for a virtuous life.

A newborn and growing child is designed by God to immediately experience boundaries and consequences appropriate to their age. Some boundaries are laws, some are rules, and some are what sociologists call norms. Norms are the way we are supposed to behave even when there is no law or rule telling us we have to. Understanding that life involves learning how to get along with others, a child comes to understand that do so requires learning what the norms are for doing so. These norms are often referred to as “common courtesy” or “being polite” or “showing respect”. By experiencing their mother and father’s boundaries and consequences the young son or daughter can come to see that God has boundaries and consequences for violating them that are designed for our good, because He loves us (1Jn. 4:17-18). As the child comes to understanding that God has ordained certain boundaries with consequences for breaching them they develop the virtue of godliness and see their worship of God as an honour.

#3. Children need to learn that honesty and integrity are essential qualities of a virtuous life.

A child is born a rebel with a disposition to sin, lie, cheat, and steal (and I should know, I was one). The person who said that children are as perfect angels had obviously never had children! Prof. Thio describes a new born child as a tabula rasa (a blank slate, p. 72). But he also says that every child is born with certain “inherited” qualities. Biologists might argue that is merely genetic but Christians know every child is born with the stain of sin on their soul (Rom. 5:12) because the first man, Adam, represented each us via a genetic connection (1Cor. 15:22). But the good news is that God has made a way for each of us to be set free from the stain of sin through repentance and confession of sins and putting our faith in Christ (Rom. 10:9). Every child needs to be taught to how to confess their sins, how to repent, and how to apologise. By witnessing their mother and father confessing their sins, repenting, and apologising, a child comes to understanding that God is good, loving, holy, and forgiving Saviour and that he or she can also develop the virtue of honesty and integrity and learn to forgive those who offend against them (Eph. 4:32).

#4. Children need to be taught to learn and educated into how to live a virtuous life.

A child requires teaching to learn how to learn and how to be educated. In a recent Pastor’s Desk I discussed the important role that parents play in educating their youngest children by simply reading to them. Parents, Kids Church workers, and Christian educators need to teach children that this world was created by God and it is His will that we learn about it. Children can be introduced good stories, how to count, how to spell, how to write, how to discover, and taken on ‘field trips’ around their neighbourhood to learn about bio-diversity and ecology (the plants and insects and animals that inhabit their neighbourhood). Every child needs to be taught to how to learn and then how to be taught so that they respect their teachers (Prov. 19:20). By witnessing their mother and father reading, studying, and learning, a child comes to understand that God is inexhaustibly magnificent and that He has made a beautiful world full of diverse wonders which reflects His artistry and unlimited intelligence (Psalm 19:1; Rom. 1:19-20).

#5. Children need to be taught how to discover that the purpose of life is to live to the glory of God.

A child must be taught that their life is a gift from God meant to be lived to God’s glory – not theirs. Happiness is a poor substitute for the true purpose of life. Ignoring God’s Word as the moral compass for our lives and fooling ourselves into thinking that we are a better moral compass than the one God has provided can only lead to inevitable pain. Every child needs to understand why the claims of the Bible are true and what the evidences are for the existence of the God of the Bible. By understanding why the Bible is trustworthy and authoritative, a child can develop their own confidence in their faith in God and His Word. The result for a child will be an understanding about how to live to the glory of God and how to see their role in society – whether they are a student, an employee, a volunteer – is to be carried out for God’s glory (1Cor. 10:31). Christian parents, Kids Church workers, and Christian school teachers play a critical in a child’s life — especially in a child’s first five years. When a child is living to the glory of God they have discovered the meaning and purpose of life itself.

 

LET’S SEE INFANTS AND TODDLERS DIFFERENTLY

The early years of a child’s life are critically important. As a church family we can each play our part in ensuring that we together do our best to ensure that youngest members of our church family are given the best role models that we can be so that their parents are supported through this important season of a child’s life. For those of us who perhaps did not receive the benefit of intentional virtue training and discipleship, the good news is that the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit can redeem any life.

While our society seems to be doing all it can to avoid marrying early and starting a family, and even promoting so-called marriages that are biologically incapable of procreating children, if we can just encourage and train prospective parents on how to raise children to be virtuous followers of Christ, we stand a great chance that within one or two generations the majority of our society will actually know the Lord. And perhaps then, we will be one or maybe two steps closer to fulfilling the Great Commission Christ. While parents, Kids Church leaders, and Christian school teachers should be intentional about shaping young children to be fully devoted followers of Christ who have reasons for believing Christianity is true – which shapes them into virtuous contributors to society and to find their role in God’s Kingdom, we can all play a supportive role in prayer, volunteering, and encouraging. Perhaps then, this Sunday, you might see some of the young children in our church family through different eyes. Hopefully you will see future doctors, future teachers, future pastors, future politicians, future business leaders, and future prime ministers. This is why I think our Kids Church and Youth Group are pivotal and key to us establishing a church than in generations to come will win their generation to the Lord!

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

TIME, YOU CAN'T CONTROL IT, BUT YOU CAN LEARN FROM IT

 

MANKIND’S LONGING TO CONTROL TIME

He has made everything beautiful in its time.
Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart,
yet so that he cannot find out what
God has done from the beginning to the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11

Mankind has longed to be able to control time. Books have been written about it. Movies have been made about it. Super-heroes have been created with power to do it. Several TV series have been produced exploring it. And most of us at one time or another have wished that we could go back in time and undo something we did, said, or do or say something we should have done or said. We can measure it, but we can not control it. Time relentlessly marches on – and along with it, we grow, we age, and we die. If, however, you believe some cosmetic companies, we can “slow the ageing the process” (if we would just use their brand of face-cream). Yet, we cannot stop time, reverse time, speed up time, or slow it down. Philosophers postulate about it. Theologians marvel at it. Historians revel in it. Impatient young children complain about it taking so long. The elderly complain that it went so quick. We are all subjected to it, but why? Why would the Creator have created it, and then subjected each of us to it? Is it a result of the Fall? Is it a curse? Since God created it, is He Himself now subject to it? If you have ever wondered about time and how cruel it can at times appear to be, then read on friend.

The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Psalm 90:10

 

WHY WE CAN NOT CONTROL TIME

Before clocks were invented, people did not view time like we do today. At sun rise it was time to rise. When the sun was as high as it was going to get, it was midday. When the sun began to set, it was time to stop working. When the sun set, it was dinner time. And shortly after it was dark it time for bed. Even in ancient times sun-dials were used as a way to see where the sun was in the sky without having to stare directly at it (one is mentioned in Isaiah 38:8). 

The original indoor clocks were pendulum and springs. They were not particularly reliable or accurate. Then, in the sixteenth century, smaller versions were invented without the need for a pendulum and could fit comfortably in a gentleman’s pocket. This then paved the way for the invention of the wrist watch around the time that the industrial age was in full swing (around 1868). In 1960 the first quartz watch was invented doing away with the need for winding and springs. These quartz watches are still the most accurate time-pieces available to ordinary people. From then, wrist watches (and electronic quartz clocks) became increasingly more sophisticated and able to measure time in smaller and smaller increments. In 2019, the Swiss watch maker, Patek Philippe, created a two-sided gentleman’s wrist watch that sold for $US31,000,000! It is fair to say that the buyer was a little obsessive about the quality and precision of his time-keeping.

The most expensive wrist watch ever sold.

Despite our increasingly precise ability to measure time, we are still unable to control it. In a culture that demands god-like control over every aspect our lives, our complete inability to control time is one of mankind’s greatest enigmas and frustrations. Our ability to measure it in such finely small increments and to always be aware of it by looking at our wrists – or the devices in our pockets – only adds to frustration that it is slipping by without paying any intention to our desire to let us control it!

Time is a sequence of unchanging events. This means that time is ordained and therefore what has happened has actually and really and finally happened. This is why the notion of being able to travel back in time is fanciful.

WHY WE ALL FIND TIME FRUSTRATING

“I just wish I had more time!” “I just wish we had more time together.” Our inability to control or even tame time reminds us that we are not all-powerful. In that sense, time almost mocks us all and certainly causes us to realise that any frustration we feel about its consistent and unchanging nature is a reminder that we are subjects to it — or more precisely — to the One who created it for us to inhabit for a very very good reason. The unchangeable nature of time deprives us from going back in time to the moment of our greatest (and perhaps most secret) sins or mistakes and preventing them, thus denying us the power of removing our unbearable burden of guilt and shame. 

Remember how short my time is!
For what vanity you have created all the children of man!
What man can live and never see death?
Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah
Psalm 89:47-48

 

GOD’S RELATIONSHIP TO TIME

We sometimes refer to God as being outside time. Philosophical theologians refer to two theories about God’s relationship to time: the ‘A’ Theory of Time and the ‘B’ Theory of Time. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis described God’s relationship with time like the reader to a book. He referred to God as being outside of the book who is able to turn to any page of that book at any time. This, in Lewis’s mind, is how one might explain God’s intimate knowledge of the future and His ability to reveal it to those who are yet to witness or experience it. This is known as the B-Theory of Time. But most theologians take issue with Lewis and argue that it is not because the future has already happened that God knows what it holds, it is rather because the future has not yet happened and yet God can still declare it through His prophets – that we know that God is omniscient (He knows all things –  even those things that will be). This is known as the A-Theory of Time.

¶ “Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
Isaiah 46:8-10

When God created our material world and its dimension of time, He entered into it. From the moment of creation, which is described in the opening chapter of Genesis, as taking God six “days” (with each day having an evening and morning) and then resting from creating on the “seventh day” (which God is still in since it is not ascribed an evening and morning, Gen. 2:4). And to put beyond any doubt that God has entered into our dimension of time, consider the first Christmas when the Creator Himself, the eternal Son of God, became a zygote who, over time, grew into the Son of Man prophesied in Daniel 7:13-14. Christ, subjected Himself to time and conquered its fatal sting.

 

GOD’S GIFT OF TIME TO EACH OF US

We live in a fast paced world. We expect things to happen quickly. None of us like to be kept waiting. Even when we order something online we expect it delivered straight away. Some of us having to work two or even three jobs just to be able to pay the bills. We describe ourselves as time-poor. Yet, we all get twenty-four-hours in a day. Sixty-minutes in an hour. And sixty-seconds in a minute. Most of us need to adjust how we see, understand, and treat our time. This will involve, what will be for some, adopting a foreign and largely unaccustomed view of time that involves worship, sabbath, and deepening relationships. From this biblical perspective we will come to see time as a gift from God, not a curse, or source of frustration. Within this gift of time God teaches us how to worship in those times when it is difficult to do so. Rather than thinking this divine gift of time is ours to do with what ever we want, God uses this gift to teach us that we should gift it back to Him beginning with (but not limited to) treating Sunday as a sabbath to come together to recommit our hearts, voices, minds, and presence with God’s people, back to God. God gives us passing time to learn to deepen relationships – especially with our kin, and our friends. Time is meant for relationship building. 

¶ So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12

 

WHEN TIME AS WE KNOW IT WILL ONE DAY END

But this gift of time will one day come to end – not just for each of us individually – but once and for all.

For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son
and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 6:40

The one who rejects Me and does not receive My words has a judge;
the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.
John 12:48

God dwells in a dimension that I refer to as eternity. The Triune God is the only being who inhabits this dimension. But when He created the Heavenly realm, and populated it with magnificent heavenly creatures. These beings then dwelt in His presence in yet another dimension (we might refer to super- or supra-time). In this supra-time dimension these heavenly beings do not age or grow. The Triune God created this dimension for His heavenly family in a way that some of these heavenly creatures could enter into our dimension of time.

And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God,
and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.
Luke 1:19

After the “last day”, we will all be resurrected. The righteous, those who have surrendered their lives to God’s gracious offer of forgiveness and adoption, will be resurrected into eternal-life and enjoy their existence forever with the Triune God in a new dimension that God had planned from the beginning of the world. For in that coming new eternal dimension we will truly worship, truly rest, and truly love everyone of fellow redeemed. In the meantime, the gift of time that He has given to each of us in this dimension is designed by our Heavenly Father to teach and prepare us for it. See you this Sunday.

Rev. 21:1 ¶ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. Rev. 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Rev. 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. Rev. 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Rev. 21:5 ¶ And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

I AM WHO I AM but I AM NOT WHO I USED TO BE but I AM NOT YET WHO I WILL BE

One of the greatest lies that the would-be enemy of all souls attempts to perpetuate is that we are what we are and we can never change. This lie is whispered into the ears of many people’s invisible ears so imperceptibly that they actually think it originated with them. “You were born this way – and you can never change”, “This is who you really are – and you can never change”, “There’s no hope of anything ever changing for better – so you might as well just kill yourself” and so on. But these sly alien voices inside the heads of the vulnerable are lies. People can change. People do change. Some circumstances were always going to be temporary and were always going to change. I know this is true because I am living proof. I am who I am but I am not who I used to be and I am not yet who I will be.

But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and His grace toward me was not in vain.
On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them,
though it was not I,
but the grace of God that is with me.
First Corinthians 15:10

In the divinely planted paradisical garden the would-be enemy of all souls deceived the First-Woman. “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Gen. 3:4-5). The heart of the Evil-One’s deception was the distorted and sarcastic claim, “You will be like God.” The First-Woman was strangely enchanted by this deception. I need to interrupt myself at this point because there are several things we need to know about God: God uniquely possesses eternality, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and immutability. Only God possesses immutability. That is, only God never changes because only He is infinitely perfect. The irony of the Evil-One’s temptation was that the First-Woman was actually created to be like God in many ways – except in the ways that make God — unique 

¶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds
of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth
and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
¶ So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:26-27

The deception of the Evil-One’s false claim was immediately exposed when Adam and the First-Woman succumbed to their Enemy’s temptation. Not only did they not become like God in every respect, they actually lost some of the attributes they had possessed which did reflect God’s image in them. After this fall from their original innocence, Adam and the First-Woman discovered for themselves that they were not – and never were – immutable (unchangeable) like God is. The truth is that the fall of the original human pair which resulted decay, deterioration, disease, and death – which are all indicators that every human being is subject to change.

But this truth also has a positive element. Even shortly after the Fall of mankind, God changed mankind’s location and then charged them to change their surroundings and then he told Cain that he should have changed his sinful emotions. The power to choose enables the power to change.

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD,
choose this day whom you will serve,
whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River,
or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
…Then Joshua said to the people,
“You are witnesses against yourselves that you
have chosen the LORD, to serve Him.”
And they said, “We are witnesses.”
Joshua 24:15, 22

The apostle Paul is a prime example of the capacity for a person to change – particularly when empowered by the grace of God to do so. He was a religious zealot for Judaism. He was extremely religious. But he then discovered that, despite being religious, his religious devotion to a falsehood could never have made him right with God. When he encountered the Risen Christ, he changed. He changed his mind, his views, his perceptions of God, and he changed his views about non-Jews. As we observe the young apostle Paul we hear him telling his readers that he was –

Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles.
Second Corinthians 11:5

For I am the least of the apostles,
unworthy to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God.
First Corinthians 15:9

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints,
this grace was given,
to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Ephesians 3:8

The apostle Paul seems to have changed over the course of his life from a rather self-confident man to a very humble man. This life-journey was not unique to Paul. In fact, the record of history reveals that most of those people who encounter Christ, either in person or through His Word, embark on a similar journey. While all human-beings have the capacity to change, whenever a person encounters Christ, the capacity to change for the better is supernaturally empowered. And this has been my story and my journey so far (which is not over yet).

For those who have been lied to that they are what they are and that they can never change, there is good news. You can change. And if you encounter Jesus in person or through His Word you can change in truly positive ways. And I should know. I have. And you can too. Here is the invitation from Jesus for you to experience previously unbelievable change –   

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Second Corinthians 5:17

You are not yet who you could be. But if you surrender to Christ, history tells us – and I can personally confirm, you can become who you were created by God to be. And perhaps for where you’re at now in your life, this might be the best news you’ve heard today.

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.